This is a story of a boy and girl called Mike and Anne. They someday will be adults of interest to each other. Will they be compatible enough to marry and stay together? The odds favor that outcome, if their self-development is guided by parents who provide the leadership to produce the following results.

About the time puberty begins its development process, Anne dreams of what her life will be like years ahead of her current age. Hopes and dreams merge into deep desire and immature conviction that it will be happen much as she imagines—shining knight and all. Boys dream of accomplishments, but it’s her dreams that govern marital life.

The sexes are born this way. She has plenty self-love but lacks self-respect. He has plenty self-respect but lacks self-love. They both have to learn how to give what they lack for two reasons: 1) Marital success depends on the glue of mutual likeability and loyalty, which depends upon mutual sharing of sincere and believable love and respect. 2) Since one cannot give what one does not possess, it has to be learned. Otherwise, her showing sufficient respect and his showing sufficient love just isn’t going to happen (although some feel pressured to fake it).

However tough for parents to impose the immature practices described below, it is essential for the marital success of their children. It works as action and reaction between under-developed personalities. Parents teach the practice but kids have to perform the actions, which are critical to shaping personalities for marital success.

In her book The Nurture Assumption, Judith Rich Harris shows that the personalities of children arise more from peer contact than parental influence. I offer the following also as bold justification for large families. Numerous brothers and sisters are so easy to guide this way, and generally turn into mates more easy to get along with.

The Learning Process Works This Way

I write as if they are raised together, but Anne and Mike are associating with others in two different families.

Anne is taught and subjected to the process of showing love for boys just for being boys until it becomes habitual. Mike is taught and subjected to the process of showing respect for girls just for being girls also until habitual. They are taught to exploit their respective strengths on behalf of the other. She specializes in spreading love, he in spreading respect. (Affirmative, you’re right. It is the reverse of what each expects as spouses.)

Not depending on words either, but showing it with actions. Not always, but Anne’s smiles can be sufficient action, because males accept female smiles as encouragement. Mike, however, must actually be more deliberate. Before puberty, the actions of both program their respective hearts for life—Mike with self-love, and Anne with self-respect. It happens this way.

Anne’s actions show love for all boys, and it registers with boys as girly love, which they reject as unwanted. Mike does not need love from girls. Nevertheless, he can’t ignore it, and so he learns to accept it as something akin to respect. He instinctively knows that he at least deserves near-respect from girls. Anne confirms it routinely.

Frequently shown a lot of Anne’s love over the course of a decade before puberty, he learns to think there is more than meets the eye. Her love showers him with her gratefulness for who he is and what he does, which makes her important to him and deserving of his recognition and attention. He concludes, probably not consciously however, that perhaps girls deserve more than respect. So affection begins to develop, and he begins to show it, and his further actions develop affection in his heart, the seed of self-love.

His inborn hard-hearted nature begins to mellow in one particular slice, that of his opinion of girls, which makes his heart receptive to the idea that he is important to girls, which fertilizes the seed of self-love. The seed grows roots until puberty as he receives more girlish attention and affection.

The longer and stronger Mike receives such loving attention from girls and learns to be grateful for them and spread his affection in return, the greater becomes his potential to someday love Anne longer and stronger.

Mike’s actions—necessarily enforced by mother until habitual—shows respect for all girls, which registers with girls as boyish affection. Anne does not need love from boys, she has plenty within herself. So, Anne looks for understanding and perceives that showing her love is respectable. Frequently transposing between her love and a boy’s respect, Anne learns that respectability can be used to get her way, even to represent and defend herself. Her use of self-respect fertilizes more of it, and thereby grows and strengthens as she receives frequent signs that signify greater respect from boys. It encourages her to depend more on self-respect to more easily get her way. Realizing that displaying self-respect pays off, she grows to depend upon it as useful. Wallah! She has self-respect, which can help her keep Mike after they marry.

The longer and stronger Anne receives such respect from boys, the greater her self-respect grows and underwrites her potential to respect Mike longer and stronger later in life. Thus, lessons learned before puberty determine life after it.

One cannot share what they do not have. Raised with the blessings described above, the more self-love Mike earns before puberty, the more love he can share with his wife, Anne. The more self-respect Anne earns before puberty, the more respect she can show husband, Mike. Whether sharing is proportional or not, adult women should think of it that way. Just the thought of proportionality reinforces the idea that nothing is ever equal, and fairness is good enough to prevent disuse and dispute.

Taught and reinforced from toddlerhood to puberty, Mike’s lesson lights one side with love, and with respect she lights the other side of her boulevard of hopes and dreams. Their marriage sparkles with mutual likeability and loyalty as it passes under the rainbow of her girlhood hopes and dreams.

——

P.S. I expect ALL mothers to proclaim they can’t do it because making girls love boys will carry into the teens. I say, not so. A girl’s self-respect plus the hormonal hurricane that arrives with puberty will have the opposite effect. Think of it this way. What do girls who get into teen trouble have in common? Lack of self-respect I consider the most critical, but I await the challenge to dispute it with you.

5 responses to “2514 — Her Boulevard of Hopes and Dreams”

I completely agree with this whole post.
I noticed in high school, and now college that the young women, and ladies without self respect taught at home are the ones who seek male attention. My upbringing, and conviction to making my lifelong dreams of marriage come true helped me bypass the teenage hormonal storm. Maybe for the children who don’t have this in their home would have a better chance if our culture encouraged better behavior. Yet I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

I would tend to agree about girls loving boys (males). I remember with a chuckle innocently telling my husband very early in our marriage that my problem was that I love men. His shocked reaction was priceless! He came to understand that I just like them for being men.

What is so darn wrong with accepting males as they are, amusing oneself (in an appreciative way) watching their predictable male natures, and rejoicing in their strengths?

I think this came from being surrounded by good men and boys in the neighborhood and extended family. Yes, they respected females, which made them good in every other way, too. It was natural for me as a girl to just love them. There was a temporary derailment in my teens as my relationship with my dad went off the rails for a time, and the other good influences were around less, but eventually things came around.

Interestingly enough, as I have grown more confident and outgoing over the years, I see that easy respect for men really charms them. Apparently, so many are respected by so few women, that it is surprising and refreshing to them.

Just like you say, Sir Guy, it makes me as a woman happy to make a man’s day with a smile or pleasant exchange. I often hope that even a single encounter will open up a man hurt by leftist feminism to some hope about women in general.

I wish I could convey more effectively how rewarding this kind of thing can be to younger women. Honestly, if a single woman can nail pretty time, self-respect, femininity, and unconditional respect for men (loving men for who men are, and treating them as they like to be treated–subjects worth studying), she will never lack for success with males in every realm of life.

What a blessing to have somehow dodged so much of the leftist feminist bullet…the biblical world view of not so long ago had a lot to do with it and can restore it.

Maybe my sharing will help some females who didn’t have that privilege to gain a bit of insight into something very precious that they can have, too.

I had to chuckle, albeit wryly, at the knight in shining armor reference. A little bit of nostalgia…perhaps, some longing for simpler times when the sweetness of the Disney version of fairy tale happy endings was the culmination of a young girls dreams. They were, granted, an over simplification of relationships, without any real grounding in the skills to maintain the newly acquired relationship, but those lessons were present in the child’s home at the time. The attraction of the princess to her prince charming was rooted in truth- that he be honorable, valiant, and caring towards the woman of his dreams. The princesses’ were dressed appropriately, were not loud and demanding, enjoyed taking care of others, two legged or four, and were kind, loyal, creative, and respected and appreciated for it. The message to the boy’s/would-be-princes’ was that they should be upstanding men, brave enough to fight back against evil forces, protect women, and be respected and rewarded for it. Again, perhaps overly simplified, but the messages were about good qualities to have, not that they were the only ones that you should have or the only ones possible. Today, however, the messaging is so convoluted. The Gen-X generation at least had the benefit of growing up with parents who still held primarily traditional families together and passed those lessons on to their own children. It made it easier to question the increasingly pervasive feminist and Marxist messaging that were not yet mainstream.

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the approaches to love and respect that boys and girls take. This is an incredibly insightful article, as always. Sir Guy, you have a true gift for explaining the nuances of the inner workings of men, women, and their relationships. I have gained so much insight since discovering your blog. A man is never more handsome than when he uses his gift of knowledge for the betterment of a lady.

I enjoyed reading your lovely written response, Honor Femininity and agree with you too. How different are the messages of today in cartoons for children from yesteryear.

You brought up the fact that most Gen-Xers grew up with both parents in the home. It’s incredibly important to have both parents (male and female) in the home. I remember the few high school friends (’80s) whose parents did divorce and they were quite traumatized by it. Some to the point that they were FEARFUL of marriage, not wanting to endure a divorce.

And Sir Guy, this article really made me think about what needs to happen at an EARLY age between boys and girls, very well explained at how this would be carried out. What are your thoughts on parents encouraging their small children to have crushes, teasing small children that they are boyfriend/girlfriend, making them kiss on the lips, etc.?

Your Highness My Husband’s Wife,

I am against all that you mention. If they learn to act like adults, it will cripple their desire to become adults and foster their desire to become teens so they can be more demonstrative. Not good.

At that age, teach them to appreciate one another in a cute childish manner, having fun as if gender differences don’t exist. Brought together as small people with their interests made common by parental guidance and suggestion and without sexual or physical connections.

To me, the perfect model is what happens between children in a large and happy family. Brotherly-sisterly connections where unity breeds respect for girls and appreciation for boys that overrides all the ill feeling they generate from just being boys. And boys learn that girls do not deserve to be mocked for the inability they lack to act as boys act. Tomboy girls, for example, earn their self-respect by their actions, but other girls are not so independent or daring.

That was kind of you to say, thank you very much. Things are definitely very different now, and not for the better. I completely agree with you on the male/female parents, not that same-sex couples can’t love a child- and certainly that’s very important, but I think that children instinctually need the safety and authority of a male father figure and the nurturing and loving of a female mother figure. That’s how we were designed to propagate and survive when you get down to the basics. I also was not exposed to many divorced families while growing up. It was more of an anomaly back then, especially where I grew up which was more rural.

I am always fascinated with the insights and teachings contained within Sir Guy’s posts. I am immeasurably glad to be here, and always look forward to the next posting.

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Wives lose husbands, but it can be prevented. Bachelorettes lose boyfriends, but it can be foreseen. Mates lose likeability, but it can be reversed. So what if the pool of good men appears half empty? By learning the true nature of men AND WOMEN, the pool appears at least half full and much more appealing to female determination and flexible to feminine influence.